The difference between weather and climate is dependent on time. To understand climate at a given place requires looking at weather over relatively long periods of time. Weather is the day-to-day interaction of factors like temperature, humidity, precipitation, cloudiness, visibility, and wind. In addition to studying weather, scientists examine climate trends or cycles of variability to understand the bigger picture of long-term changes.
La Nina didn’t dissappoint! Reflecting on last winter…
“Recharge rates” …
Not out of it yet in the northeast.
Sea surface temperatures have remained below average, maintaining La Niña conditions in the ocean and lower atmosphere. Most models agree that as this winter transitions into spring, sea surface temperatures are expected to return to near average. Returning to ENSO-neutral in spring means neither El Niño nor La Niña conditions are present. When ENSO-neutral occurs, ocean and atmospheric conditions are near the long-term average and it often coincides with a transition from La Niña to El Niño or vice versa. While ENSO-neutral persists there is often less confidence in summer forecast as durations of neutral conditions vary. As this transition occurs, La Niña conditions will continue with below-average temperatures and above-median precipitation in spring for Montana. These conditions will gradually weaken and transition to neutral as spring transitions to summer.
TODO: Convert to 2-category system (1-(t+50)) (rescaled to 1)
## $data
## Simple feature collection with 3 features and 4 fields
## geometry type: POLYGON
## dimension: XY
## bbox: xmin: 595911 ymin: 276825.2 xmax: 1017293 ymax: 541731.5
## epsg (SRID): 102300
## proj4string: +proj=lcc +lat_1=45 +lat_2=49 +lat_0=44.25 +lon_0=-109.5 +x_0=600000 +y_0=0 +ellps=GRS80 +towgs84=0,0,0,0,0,0,0 +units=m +no_defs
## Fcst_Date Target ORIG_FID Drought Outlook
## 1 2/15/2018 May 31 0 Drought remains but improves
## 2 2/15/2018 May 31 0 Drought persists
## 3 2/15/2018 May 31 0 Drought removal likely
## geometry
## 1 POLYGON ((949113.5 538405.8...
## 2 POLYGON ((1007538 420059.1,...
## 3 POLYGON ((876837.4 410866, ...
##
## $map